Quell That Rebel Yell - Comments

I didn’t even read the summary because the title and the layout seemed so interesting.

However long the first chapter was it was INTENSE. I like how you wrote the opening paragraph. I lived in Florida once for a few months and almost died because of the humidity haha.

The only critique I have is that you should write using past tense. “He watched her leave” instead of “He watches her leave.” You know? You don’t have to go back and change it, I’m not asking for that, I’m just letting you know.

The flow of the words is perfect, how you go from paragraph to paragraph smoothly is something most people can’t really do. And the fact that you could shows just how much time and effort you put into writing this. Plus I could really find any typos or puncuational errors, also a good sign.

This is an awesome story!

Chapter One

"Every afternoon when the sun, at its highest point in the sky, and the sticky heat are at their most unbearable, the puffy white clouds, seeming relatively harmless earlier in the day, sympathetically break over the small Florida town, Port Charlotte."
This sentence is way too long - I had to reread it about three times before I even understood it.

"Even when there's genocide in Africa and an endless war raging in Iraq, it's still raining every single day around two in the afternoon in Port Charlotte, Florida."
I liked this sentence.
I thought it was very well-written and gave the reader a greater sense of this place you're talking about.
It leaves me wondering... why is the rain here so important?

"It's evening now, though and the clouds are still hanging harmlessly in the sky"
There's a second comma needed after "though."

"In her lap, her hands are shaking, mind is racing and she cracks her knuckles to calm not only her hands, but thoughts as well, to no avail."
This sectence comes out a bit awkward to me.
Maybe separate the "to no avail" part into a new sentence altogether?

"I don't think I understand," she whispers, not trusting her voice to keep from shaking if she tries to raise it. Her hands tighten around each other and her heart is filled with a quiet loathing for her husband and what he tells her. "Jeffrey, this town, the people we work with, the friends that your kids grew up with," her voice cracks and she can't help but omit a small sob. "All of this, everything we know is going to be gone two days from now?"
This is great! I only have some idea of what's happening - which makes me curious enough to keep reading.

"What about everyone else?" she whispers, the tears falling from her eyes freely now, darkening them and leaking past the transition lenses and down her cheeks. "Why isn't this all over the news? Why aren't we evacuating?"
Now I'm on the edge of my seat! What's happening? This is good. :D

"He wants to reach out and stop her, to keep her there while he thinks of the right words to say to explain it to her, more for his own sake that hers."
I think "that" should be "than" here.

"He watches her leave the room with a sadness in his eyes, knowing that an hope of returning to normality goes with her."
And "an" should be "any" here.

Micah's fists are clenched at his sides and he looks ready to explode. His face is twisted into a snarl of anger and betrayal. "Who cares about your damn prom?" he growls at his sister. "Better yet, who cares about Dad's fucking job? It's always about him! Pretending to be the perfect little family for his big fancy dinner parties, doing well in school so he looks good on paper, making friends with people we hate so that he can secure his next big promotion; when will either of you ever care what matters to us?" he questions, glaring at his mother, daring her to deny his accusations.
You portray his emotion amazingly - I feel like I'm actually there.

"She can't."
Ooooh. This is getting interesting.

Vera gets up from the couch that she's been seated on beside her younger brother of a year and a half. She walks to the doorway coolly, her head held high. When she passes her mother, her smaller hand slips into her mother's warm palm, squeezing it secretly. She wills her mother to feel her support, though she can't look in her eyes to convey the message, unwilling to betray the weakness behind her own.
I really liked this part, but I'm not exactly sure. It's really intense and it just speaks to me.

As she makes her way up the stairs to her bedroom, she feels the walls of her childhood home crashing down around her, the pictures shattering as they slam to the ground beside her.
Wait... is the storm coming or something now? Or was this part not literal?
It leaves me slightly skeptical, but also extremely curious. I actually think this is a good thing.

"The sun is already high in the sky and there are no clouds in sight, Miguel Gonzalez is resentful of the dry heat of the desert."
I would definitely change that comma to a period here.

"The gun in his hands and the thoughts of what it will be used for weigh heavily on him as he marches shoulder-to-shoulder with the dangerous men that he has just recently learned to call friends."
Now I'm wondering who the heck this guy is - and what the heck he's doing. This is all really captivating.

"He would have gone about his business throughout the day and laughed about it with is wife later, after returning home from work, over dinner."
I'm pretty sure "is" should be "his.".

"When he stomps, feeling the ground shake beneath him, he feels real again. If only for a fleeting moment, while the vibrations still shake through the muscles in his legs. He wants so badly to be alive again."
This part really gives me a greater understanding of soldiers and men who carry weapons and such. I like that about it.

"An iron fist caked with a blood so deeply engraved beneath his fingernails that he's sure he'll never be able to fully scrub it out."
Really amazing imagery here - I love it!

"In grade school, still innocent to the cruelties of the world, they'd made hell for any teacher that they ever shared, loving life and laughing up a storm. They were the king and queen of the playground, making up games for all their classmates to play with crooked rules that always made them win in the end."
A bit cliche here, but I think you really pull it off.

"Grayson took out his confusion and resentment for what was going out at home on any of the kids that ever dared to make fun of Heather's glasses and braces."
Aw, that's so sweet! It makes me love this Grayson dude.

"The first time his father had hit him for defending his mother, she'd been the one to nurse his black eye, using cold compresses: twenty minutes no, twenty minutes off."
I think that "no" should be "on" here.

"In her mind, 'I love you' means: let's get married, buy a big beautiful house, have a few kids to share it with, get a dog to complete the picture, and stay together like this forever. In his mind, 'I love you' means: today I want to be with you, hold you, take care of you, but don't ask me what I'm going to feel tomorrow or twenty years from now, because I don't know and neither do you."
I liked this part a lot - it gives me two separate views and I can easily relate to both.

"For now, he settles for the way she feels against him."
I liked this ending, but it didn't quite meet up to my expectations.
It just sort of... fades off with no real big surprise or cliffhanger.
But it's still really good!

---

Dude, I really love this story so far, and I decided to write a big giant comment because of that. (:

Keep up the amazing work! <3

You have a good way of writing emotion, I feel like I can actually feel what they're feeling.
And this idea about three completley different people, or families, brilliant.
I've never seen this before, you've got something good here! :}

This is such an intense read.
I really loved the first chapter.
There was so many different emotions and actions going on.
I loved it.
I can't even begin to imagine how a rebellion will tie into this.
You've got the makings of an epic story here.
And I mean that :)

Story Review Game

Story title

I'm not quite sure how it relates to the story yet, but it's definitely interesting enough.

Summary

Ah, that's how the title ties in! The second sentence of the summary confuses me a tad, though; perhaps tossing in an Also at the beginning of the sentence?

Layout

I quite like how the image seems to have a shadow, and that it has a simple border. It's interesting and not something you see often. The simple fonts work nicely and I like that the layout is offset from the center.

Chapter One

Kudos on using the correct different timezones! I love that you pinned the weather in Florida so well; little storms every day are so regular here, it's not even funny.

The afternoon rain is a staple in the small community. A proven stability that gives its residents a sense of security, despite the state of the outside world.
Wouldn't those lines work a bit better combined, with the period being a comma instead? The way it is now, the second line seems very weak compared to the first and it makes that bit of the story a bit weird.

(Also, a fun little tidbit- there's a Topeka Avenue in Orlando, which amused me a bit to read)
I love how urgent everything seems, and yet time seems almost to slow down when you read the next paragraph at first. They're both quite stressed and freaked out, and it comes across well through the following paragraphs.

That man is dead, a ghost of his past, long since quieted and shoved into the deepest corners of his mind, safely tucked away where it can no longer speak out and cause trouble.
This seems like just too long, too rambly of a sentence. It's powerful, but not at it's full potential.

The children's response is exactly how I'd imagine any kid would be like when they're being told something like that, and how Nora seems so perfect at lying about what's happening.

I'm quite intrigued as to why the public isn't being told about the evacuation, though I suppose that'll be explained later in the story.

I love how smoothly the story transitions into the next location. I'm wondering what importance Texas will have here, if they too are to be hit by the storm.

In his heart, there is no longer love or compassion for his fellow men, no sympathy for those whose lives he is about to help turn upside down. He marches to make the world shake beneath his boots, something that he knows will reek havoc, and maybe, one day, start a war.

Shouldn't the reek there be wreak?

When he stomps, feeling the ground shake beneath him, he feels real again. If only for a fleeting moment, while the vibrations still shake through the muscles in his legs.

The second sentence is fantastic, but it's got something of the same issue as the sentence about the afternoon rain; because of the first, it seems weaker. I think rephrasing it, combining it into a sentence where the he feels real again is the last bit would make it a load better, or leaving it two separate sentences and still putting the he feels real again at the end would make it better.

Once again, it transfers smoothly into the next scene. I love the mention of 420, and how much background there is on the two characters. It's nice to see that, even though she suddenly got a hell of a lot of attention, Heather still sticks with her true friend, and Grayson truly seems to appreciate her.

I also love the two different definitions of I love you; it definitely means different things to different people, and I go more with Grayson's.

No matter how much he wants to be what she needs, he knows that she deserves better. She deserves someone that can make her big dreams-as bright and wide as her eyes-come true.

This has to be one of my favorite lines from the story so far. It shows how much he feels towards her, and it's wonderful and a great way to end a chapter.

Chapter Two

It's completely realistic that the pair meet up so late at night; if I were to receive news like that, I certainly would do that with one of my friends. The description you give about the setting is great; not too much, but not too little.

Putting myself in Vera's shoes is easy- she seems to be such a levelheaded girl from what we're read, and what she thinks is what I would think in her situation. Plus, I love how much she's developed in this chapter.

Her friends don't like her dad, none of them ever have, they don't trust many politicians at all.

I really don't like this sentence. It's got too much going on to be in one sentence; perhaps having the first be a simple sentence, and then rephrasing the two afterwards?

The ending is sad, but it shows that though he's a politician, he really does just want the people he loves and cares about to be safe, like any father would want.

Overall

Overall, I really like this. You've got a fantastic way of describing things and keeping it real and interesting. Ignoring the few oddly phrased sentences, it's very well written and captures the audience's attention easily. I'll have to keep an eye on this, for sure.

"When we asked about that, Mom said it would be fine if we came out for a few weeks during the summer"

Man, that was cold. At first I felt sympathy for Nora, and I still do to some extent, but she is just as guilty of manipulating her children as her husband.I felt like this chapter provided a little more insight into the mind of Vera, which I felt the first chapter lacked. Can't wait to see what you do with this next =]

When I read the summary, I thought about the movie V for Vendetta and the quote V used about people shouldn't be scared of their governments, but the governments should be scared of their people. But I agree with the first story comment. It was a interesting read that's for sure. I loved how you wrote this with the different states, it was like The Happening.

Title: I like the assonance, and you used intriguing words, which drew me in.

Layout: The layout is a little simple for my taste, it doesn't make the story pop. I think a nice patterned background image would help tremendously.

Summary: "Corruption and deceit, languages most often used between politicians, destroy a nation

You have unconnected clauses in your summary, and it's a run-on. Maybe something like "Corruption and deceit; the language used between politicians when they destroy a nation.The language used when 5,036 United States citizens and an entire town are literally wiped off the map due to a storm that the government could have warned them against."

I really like the introduction, highlighting those elements of your story, corruption and deceit, draws a reader in immediately. I did not, however, like the list of characters in your summary. You already have a character section, linking those images seems cluttered and out of place.

Chapter 1:Immediately in your first sentence, I notice linking verbs will be a problem in your story. Using words like am, is, are, was, were, has been, are being, might have been, etc, eliminates the action from your stories. Sometimes rewording the sentences can be difficult, but the entire chapter will read so much better.

I like the transition from the serene depiction of the afternoon rain, to the turmoil within the walls of a house. The foiling between such different things makes each stand out.

I don't understand your separation of paragraphs. For example,
"Her brown eyes are red and wide behind her glasses and, not for the first time, she's glad to have her transition lenses tinted from the light shining through the window, hiding the tears that she's afraid to let fall.

In her lap, her hands are shaking, her mind is racing and she cracks her knuckles to calm not only her hands, but her thoughts as well, to no avail."

Each of those paragraphs is just a single sentence, and they both deal with her emotions at the same period of time. I think it would be better if they were connected.

Here is a good example of excess words and linking verbs:
" Her hands tighten around each other and her heart is filled with a quiet loathing for her husband and what he is telling her."
This could be
"Her hands tighten around each other as her heart fills with a quiet loathing for her husband and what he tells her."

"That man is dead, a ghost of his past-long since quieted and shoved into the deepest corners of his mind, safely tucked away where it can no longer speak out and cause trouble for him."
I think the hyphen should be a comma.

" "I know it's hard that the job offer came from all the way across the country, but your father [ i]needs[/] this,"
forgot the i in your BBcode

I feel like when you transition to other places, you may consider starting a new chapter. If what you wrote about happened at the same time in each place, I would understand keeping the same chapter, but each town has it's own happenings at a different time.

"He pulled her into his arms and that night, they rid each other of their pesky virginity's that their friends had relentlessly picked on them for still having."
You can't connect two complete sentences with only a comma. You need a conjunction (and) or make them two separate sentences. Also, virginity's should be virginities- you're talking in the plural sense.

I love what you've done with the plot of this story. In a way, it reminds me of a big brother type thing like 1984, something you may consider alluding to? You're basically sending the same message, watch out for what our government can do, or in this case, not do. I like the allusion to Katrina and the bad after response, your story presents the next level- what if we were never warned in the first place?

One problem I do have, however, is the cliche characters of the children. In every story about corrupt politicians, there is the beautiful daughter who gets asked out by the perfect boy, and a pissed off son who hates who his father is. I feel like you need to give them something else to make them stand out, a unique trait. As your story progresses, I would definitely keep character development in mind so ensure the message of your plot is properly carried.

Overall, I think this story has great potential and with a little work I think you can take this a long way. Good luck!

This was a really intense and interesting read.
I'm going to subscribe to this because I want to know what happens next!

I especially loved this line: In his place, she sees another corrupt politician whose ambition has dug such a deep hole that he can't see the light of the sky anymore to tell up from down.

You have a wonderful way of telling a story.
I can't wait for more!